


truth (and other things that thrive in the light)

by darcylindbergh



Series: the tales and triumphs of the fucking shit up jacket [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Frottage, Laughing and Teasing During Sex, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Sneaky Demon Isn't Very Sneaky, Special Guest: The Fucking Shit Up Jacket, The South Downs, They're In Love Your Honor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:47:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29608251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh
Summary: “Anthony J. Crowley!” he shouts, abandoning his book instantly, “You put that jacket back right now or so help me—!”*Retirement is well and good, but a legend still has to have fun sometimes.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley
Series: the tales and triumphs of the fucking shit up jacket [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2173449
Comments: 76
Kudos: 257
Collections: Unleash The Chaos - Zine Fics and Art





	truth (and other things that thrive in the light)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you once again to the Unleash the Chaos zine for all the excellent fucking shit up jacket content - it's been a pleasure. 
> 
> You don't have to have read the first one to understand this one, but that's where the origin story is.

_The South Downs, 2020_

Aziraphale takes a sip of his cocoa and sighs contentedly. It’s the perfect cup, if he does say so himself, hot and sweet but not too much so. Combined with the salty breeze blowing in through the open windows, the well-curated cosiness of his study, and the absolutely exquisite edition of _Maurice_ he holds in his hands, it’s shaping up to be a perfectly perfect afternoon.

Until.

A chill shivers down Aziraphale’s spine; a sense of dread opens like a pit in his stomach. The quiet breeze seems to hold a warning in it, with the usual chirp of birds having fallen entirely silent. The afternoon suddenly feels— _spooky_.

There’s a noise in the cottage. The soft creak of an old hinge. The careful fall of footsteps, like someone hoping to go unheard, coming from the guest bedroom. A strange, muffled sound, like a giggle smothered behind someone’s hand.

And all at once, Aziraphale knows what horror is about to be unleashed.

“ _Anthony J. Crowley!_ ” he shouts, abandoning his book instantly, “You put that jacket back right now or so help me—!”

Crowley’s laughter echoes through the cottage, demonically magnified, and try as Aziraphale might, he can’t help but to laugh back.

“Where are you, you old gargoyle?” he calls, poking his head into the sitting room, the kitchen, even the back garden. “I know you’re up to something!”

It isn’t that Aziraphale doesn’t approve, necessarily—he may be an angel, but he’d fallen in love with a demon and that was that—but they’d agreed when they’d moved down here not to muck around in the village. They’d been sitting at a café table eating some of the most beautiful sandwiches—thick slices of hot rashers and nutty cheese, salted tomatoes and bib lettuce—and the day had been warm and lazy, and Crowley had leaned back and said, _you know, I think we ought to just let them alone, just let this place be human through and through._ Aziraphale had thought about arguing just for the sake of it, but in the end had only looked over and said, _you know, I think you’re right._

No miracles, no temptations, no blessings, no curses. Just humanity, doing its very best.

Crowley’d hung up the workman’s jacket that very afternoon, the one Aziraphale had got him in the Seventies that he generally wore to get up to sneaky business. Hung in the guest bedroom: as retired as they were themselves. _Don’t need it anymore_ _,_ he’d told Aziraphale with a grin, when he caught him watching. _The only mischief I’m up to these days is with you._

Aziraphale sneaks down the hallway, using a quiet miracle (of the non-mucking about sort) to soften his footsteps. The bathroom is as empty as the rest of the house, which only leaves—

The bedroom.

*

The white paneled door at the end of the halls is closed, which is itself something of a giveaway: they never close the door. Aziraphale creeps in close to press an eye to the bronze keyhole, but he can only make out the small floral print of their quilt hanging over the edge of the bed. He can hear a shuffling, though, the smooth sound of a body on blankets, the gentle exhale of someone finding _just_ the right spot to lay.

Aziraphale slowly—carefully—twists the knob, and eases the door open.

“Hey, angel,” Crowley says, with a grin so wicked it could be burnt at its own stake. “Guess you caught me.”

 _Caught_ is certainly one word for it: Crowley is very much indulging in his devilry, spread out on the quilt and bare from his toes to his chest. He’s a vision in the warm afternoon light, flushing pink over his freckled skin, looking soft and indulgent and languid; pale copper hair glints along his calves and dusts up his thighs before gathering vibrantly between them, where his hand is working along the length of his cock.

The only thing he’s wearing is the navy and orange workman’s jacket.

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathes, leaning on the door frame to watch. “I see that I have.”

It’s clear, upon a second look, that Crowley’s really only just got started; the flush on his skin is only skimming the surface, the soft length of his thighs and belly have not yet begun to tense and shake. His cock is hard but not quite yet straining, and he’s taking his time with it—his hand traces a long, slow stroke from tip to base, the circle of his fingers still lax and gentle.

Not yet working to bring himself off, Aziraphale realises. This is a touch meant to tease and warm, to _ready_ , rather than to get anywhere. This is a touch meant to pass the time—a touch meant to _wait_.

Crowley leans his head back against the pillows, looking up at Aziraphale with half-lidded eyes and that mischievous grin, which turns lazy as he strokes himself. “See anything you like?”

It’s blatant and not a little ridiculous, and it fills Aziraphale’s chest with joy—that Crowley so easily indulges himself, so easily teases Aziraphale. That he can so easily ask for something, and no longer worry about whether he’ll get it.

Aziraphale plays along anyway, gazing steadily at Crowley, tilting his head as if to get a better look. “When I realised you had the jacket out,” he says, keeping his voice as casual as he can manage, “I had expected to find you making rather more trouble.”

“You don’t think I can get into trouble like this?” Crowley spreads his legs wider, slows his hand down a little, a clear invitation. His bare skin seems so much more vulnerable in contrast to the heavy, stiff material of the workman’s jacket, even with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows and the sides falling open around his naked chest and belly. “Maybe you ought to come over here and find out.”

Maybe he ought.

*

Aziraphale slips into the bedroom, shucking off his cardigan, his cuff-links, his brogues. Arousal is a thick, honey-sweet warmth spreading through him, settling in his thighs and his belly; he sits next to Crowley on the bed, half-hard already in his trousers, and skims a hand up Crowley’s bare calf.

Crowley pushes back instantly, pressing his skin to Aziraphale’s palm. The hand between his legs slows, drawing attention to the flush and the strain, asking without words.

“The only trouble I see here,” Aziraphale teases easily, stroking over Crowley’s knee, “is the trouble you’re getting yourself into.”

Crowley’s hips shift imperceptibly, pushing Aziraphale’s hand higher. “The trouble _I’m_ getting into?” he repeats incredulously. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, sweetheart, but I’m tempting an angel here.”

Aziraphale laughs, and shows him exactly what he means: his fingers find Crowley’s where they’re moving, lining up over them as a guide. He strokes Crowley’s hand down to the base, lingering just long enough for a thumb to sweep down over the delicate skin of his balls before guiding him back up toward the head. It’s slow, and deliberate, dragging just enough to demand attention— _here, now, do you feel it? Every inch of you, waiting for me._

“There,” Aziraphale says lightly, guiding Crowley’s hand back down before releasing his grip; Crowley shudders with the loss, groaning. “Now do you see what trouble you’re in?”

Crowley groans again, but his hand continues to move at the pace Aziraphale had set. “Oh,” he says, panting, “ _that_ trouble.”

“ _That_ trouble,” Aziraphale agrees. “You’re very good at trouble, after all. Be a shame not to let you have your fill.”

“Oh, no, by all means, feel—feel free. Plenty to go around.”

Aziraphale grins, leaning in to press a kiss against Crowley’s thigh; his hands are already overtaking new ground, sliding over Crowley’s hips, slipping up under the workman’s jacket to smooth palms over his waist, up his ribs. His mouth follows behind, leaving a trail of faint pink marks on Crowley’s skin all the way up to the centre of his chest.

Crowley’s hand moves, and moves, and moves.

“You’re wearing too many clothes for this much trouble,” Crowley finally croaks. His free hand is warm against the back of Aziraphale’s neck, delving down underneath the collar of his shirt. “Get this off.”

Aziraphale agrees, leaving a kiss to the base of Crowley’s throat before sitting up to shimmy out of the rest of his clothes. He keeps an eye on Crowley’s hand, undoing a button for each downstroke Crowley makes, torturously slow. When Crowley abandons his rhythm to try and delve fingers up under hems or beneath a waistband, Aziraphale only catches his hand back, kissing each fingertip briefly, and puts it back to its work.

“Angel,” Crowley says breathlessly.

“I’ll get this,” Aziraphale replies with a wry smile. “You get that.”

“It’s _been_ got,” Crowley bites out with a bit of a strangled laugh. His hand keeps going through, if a little faster than it had been before.

Aziraphale keeps his promises though, shimmying off the rest of his clothes in an instant. His own cock is stiff and straining now, aching in sympathy with the darkening flush of Crowley’s, and he wants to feel that stroke for himself. Crowley seems to be able to read his mind, the wily old thing, and he shifts his hips and bounces his thighs, wriggling in a manner that’s probably meant to be enticing.

It’s a good thing Aziraphale’s up for being enticed.

The workman’s jacket is a thick, rough presence as Aziraphale slips back up the bed, settling between Crowley’s legs as he stretches out over him, kissing him from hip to rib, nipple to neck. Crowley’s hand bumps against Aziraphale’s belly as they settle together until it’s too much in the way, and Crowley finally lets himself go to accept Aziraphale close against him, wrapping his arms around Aziraphale’s shoulders instead.

“Hello, darling,” Aziraphale says, nudging his nose to Crowley’s as he nudges their cocks together, swallowing up the gasp Crowley gives him in another kiss. His cock is hot where it presses against Aziraphale’s skin, and his hips jerk into Aziraphale’s, up and up and up.

“You gonna say hellos all afternoon,” Crowley asks, shifting against him, “or are you gonna do something with all this?”

“Mm.” Aziraphale gives him a slow, rolling thrust, sensitive skin against skin. “I’m deciding.”

“Deciding _what?_ ”

Aziraphale’s hand works its way under the jacket, stroking along the soft skin of Crowley’s waist; he’s sweating a little under the material, but Aziraphale likes it, likes how real it is. How _human_ it is.

“Just what I ought to do with you, obviously.” Another thrust and another kiss; Crowley shifts again and again, trying—unsuccessfully—to speed things up. “Any suggestions? You did seem to be the one making all the plans here.”

“Didn’t have anything fancy in mind,” Crowley manages, and his next kiss is marginally more persuasive. He lifts himself up to it, like he’s drinking from Aziraphale’s mouth, tinged with a growing desperation, and Aziraphale can’t help but to slide one hand behind Crowley’s head, to cradle him, to let him drink his fill. He finally breaks away, laughing a little; his hands are grasping, greedy. “Always wanted a go at you wearing this jacket, is all.”

“Mm.” Aziraphale’s had the same thought over the years, though he’s never voiced it. Crowley in this jacket, those tight jeans shoved desperately down his thighs as he thrusts up into Aziraphale’s hand against the shelves in the bookshop; Crowley with his head tilted back, the white flashes of the reflectors shifting light back over Aziraphale’s skin as Crowley moves and moves and moves against him, bent over and braced; Crowley with the jacket on and his clothes off, almost exactly like this, soft and protected and _open_. “Are you up for a little more trouble, darling?”

Crowley’s grin is full of joy. “Always, angel.”

Aziraphale braces his knees, and rolls.

*

It’s the work of an instant to settle Crowley over his hips, and Crowley takes to it instantly, wiggling in all his new-found freedom and the great expanse of Aziraphale’s skin suddenly made available to him. Now with the advantage of movement, he’s given up entirely on _slow_ and found something that falls closer to _ambitious_.

The workman’s jacket is thick and loud, rustling with every shift of hips and shoulders. Crowley parts the sides around his hips to get it out of the way and tosses his hair back over his shoulders. “Oh, who’s in trouble now, angel?” he asks, rolling his hips.

Aziraphale laughs. He’d had ideas about keeping things steady, letting the pace build evenly, but Crowley’s reveling in it now and it’d be a shame to stop him. “I think I can manage to keep up,” he says, just to make it a challenge, and Crowley laughs too.

“Do you think?”

But Aziraphale’s already beat him to it, shoving one hand between them to wrap his grip around both their cocks at once. Crowley’s gone a bit damp around the head; he takes a moment to smooth his thumb over the tip, smearing the gathering precome.

“I rather do,” he promises, as he starts to press up with a little more purpose, and Crowley curses him without meaning in it and presses back. “This all right, darling?”

Crowley nods, already shifting himself around to thrust down and down; Aziraphale’s hand barely fits around them together, but it’s a delicious friction. His palm moves down their cocks as he pushes up and up, and he feels the juxtaposition of cock to hand to hip all jumbled together, weaving together with the rough shift of the jacket along their skin, from his chest to his toes as Crowley tries to thrust back.

Heat curls through him, insistent. He moves the tiniest bit faster.

Need rises between them too, quickly and easily, building each other up and up as they move together, curling around each other. Crowley’s hand joins the fray as well, the both of them straining together until Aziraphale sneaks his hand out and lets Crowley take over, laughing when Crowley gives a brief cry of victory.

Aziraphale digs his hands up under the jacket, finding the smooth curves of his waist, the sweat-damp expanse of his back. Crowley’s muscles flex and flute as he rolls his hips and Aziraphale wrestles himself up to meet up him, the effort shaking in his thighs as the tension builds and builds in his hands, his knees, his throat.

Aziraphale’s in love.

“Kiss me,” Aziraphale urges, and Crowley does without hesitation, bending over him to envelope him in a rush of hair and the wings of the jacket on either side, with a kiss so honest Aziraphale feels it all the way down into his belly, his toes, the depths of what passes, in an angel, for a soul.

It’s so different from their first kiss—although Crowley had been wearing the jacket then too, standing in the drizzling rain outside of a tavern on the edges of Slough, rough on Aziraphale’s upper lip with a moustache that wouldn’t last the decade. The kisses back then had been so light and so hesitant they might as well have been whispers, there and gone again, only a rumour for Aziraphale to take home and remember, but it _had_ happened, and Aziraphale had remembered, and he’d been in love then as he is now, even if he couldn’t have said it.

He’d wanted, so badly, to say it.

Now he could.

The afternoon builds together, hammered in with the shifting hips and twisting fabric, thrusting together again and again, cocks sliding hot and hard against one another, and it’s easy and assuring and familiar. Crowley’s a flash of red hair and yellow eyes, a grin full of eyeteeth and laughter, and Aziraphale’s in love—with the grip of Crowley’s hand and the snap of his hips and the punch of his breath on every thrust, the rising note that carries through on his breath as something rises tense and shaking in his thighs, with the comfort of their shared bed beneath them and the green-tinged light filtering in through the windows, the promise of mischief that hangs in their guestroom and the promise of laughter shared between both their lungs, and every morning laying out before them, an eternity that they can finally rely on, and Aziraphale’s in _love._

The workman’s jacket is a solid thing between them, its own laughing, teasing entity, rasping noisily in excitement as the rolling and the pressing and the _here here here_ and the _now now now_ gets faster and faster. The white reflectors grab at the afternoon sun, shimmering with happiness as Crowley moves, as Aziraphale moves with him; the sleeves start to slip down Crowley’s forearms, too big now as they have always been, kissing trails of rough nylon over Aziraphale’s skin behind the smoothing heat of Crowley’s palms, his hair, his lips, discovering him, being discovered by him.

Aziraphale’s in love.

“I love you,” Crowley exhales, stealing the thought from Aziraphale’s mind, from his mouth. Aziraphale surges up to taste the words on his lips; they taste like garden-fresh strawberries and long afternoons trading secrets in their shared sheets. “I love you.”

“You ridiculous _sap_ _,_ ” Aziraphale accuses, laughing, and Crowley cries out his affronted surprise as Aziraphale’s hand dips to join his own again, to stroke them both together, to urge them both forward, just that little faster yet.

“I’m no sap,” Crowley says, eyes glittering, cheeks flushed, chest heaving. “I’m just telling you the truth.”

“I know,” Aziraphale says. He wrests himself up off the bed to sit with Crowley in his lap, chest to chest, cheek to cheek, laving kisses up his neck, holding him by the ribs underneath the jacket as it surrounds them both. “I love you too.”

Crowley groans, and drops his head to press it hard into Aziraphale’s shoulder, his hips shimmying out of time, out of control; Aziraphale gathers him closer, holds him tighter, lets the wild jerks and thrusts of his body take what they need to take as Crowley curls in around him. “Angel, angel, angel, angel, angel.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale answers. “ _Crowley,_ come on, darling, come on.”

He snaps his hips up, strokes his hand faster. Crowley’s beautiful, Crowley’s warm, Crowley’s here, alive and gasping and sweating and wanting and loving, loving, _loving_ _,_ and—

And he’s shuddering apart under Aziraphale’s hand, coming to pieces in his arms, his voice catching in his throat and his hand catching in Aziraphale’s hair. He comes like he’s telling a secret, like he’s giving himself up, letting Aziraphale see all of him, and Aziraphale loves him, loves him, loves him, and then he’s following after—telling all his own secrets one by one, giving himself back, letting Crowley in.

It feels like spreading every part of him wide open; it feels like catching the wind and taking flight.

Aziraphale collapses back into the pillows, dragging Crowley down along with him, a pile of warm loose limbs curled on Aziraphale’s chest. The rough material of the jacket covers over them both, and here is the truth: it has never been only one white wing raised against the storm.

It is one white, and one black, and two hands held in between them.

*

They’re still for a long minute, heartbeats slowing against one another, breaths evening out together. Aziraphale slips his hands up Crowley’s back, lifting the weight of the jacket away from his body; Crowley makes a pleased sound deep in his throat as cool fresh air rushes up his skin.

“Let’s get this off you,” Aziraphale murmurs, quiet against Crowley’s ear.

Crowley takes another moment, but then he nods, lifts himself up enough that Aziraphale can help him shed the jacket and toss it over to the floor. The sweat on Crowley’s back and ribs has started to dry, and he flexes and stretches into the free air. He slips off Aziraphale’s hips as they snap themselves clean, grabbing a blanket off a side chair before coming back to nestle in close to Aziraphale’s side.

“Do you know what day it is?” Crowley asks softly, mumbled into Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“Mm. A good one?”

“S’our anniversary.”

“What?” Aziraphale lifted his head, trying to get a glimpse of the grin he could feel being pressed into his skin. “It most certainly is not. Our anniversary is in September.”

“First of all, it _is_ September. I need you to know that it is, in fact, September.” Crowley’s grin spreads, positively gleeful; Aziraphale huffs and swats at his hand, but then they both break out in giggles and Crowley stretches up for a kiss. “That’s not the anniversary I mean, though.”

“We have more than one anniversary?”

“Angel, we have like, seventeen anniversaries, keep up.”

“ _Seventeen?_ What could we possibly need seventeen anniversaries for?”

Crowley raises an eyebrow. “Seriously? Meeting in Eden, the first time you helped me sneak around with the ark business, first time I broke you out of prison in France, first time we kissed—” At this point, Aziraphale’s giggles have devolved into a full-body shake of a laugh— “What? You don’t remember this stuff?”

“Of course I _remember_ it,” Aziraphale says, pink and pleased and kissing Crowley one more time. “I just don’t keep track of the dates. Who knew you were such a hopeless roman—”

“Look, it’s not important,” Crowley cuts off quickly, making Aziraphale giggle again. “Point is: it’s the anniversary of when you gave me that jacket.”

Crowley glances up at him, his eyes yellowed and waiting, brilliant and soft, as if wondering if this is a memory that Aziraphale holds as closely as he does. Aziraphale leans down, kissing each eyelid softly as if to say, _yes, yes, I remember it too, yes_ _,_ and then presses their foreheads together.

“Is it?” he asks quietly, the hint of a laugh catching on an overflow of affection in his throat. “Goodness. If I’d known what trouble you were going to get up to in it, I might’ve reconsidered.”

“You knew exactly what trouble I was going to get up to in it.”

“Well—” Aziraphale laughs again, wrapping an arm around Crowley’s waist to hold him just that much closer; Crowley seems to spill over him with all those limbs, twining legs and arms, nudging his nose back against Aziraphale’s. “That wasn’t the point.”

“I know,” Crowley says simply. “You wanted me to come back to you.”

That’s a thing they’d never have been able to say, before. A thing they’d never be able to admit, that they’ve never be able to acknowledge. That Aziraphale protected Crowley because he couldn’t bear to be parted from him; that Crowley protected Aziraphale because he couldn’t bear to let him go.

The workman’s jacket, and years before, the holy water. Burnt soles down the aisle of a church. Wearing each other’s faces, as familiar as their own, all the way up to the gallows.

An outstretched wing.

“Yes,” Aziraphale breathes, kissing him. It’s a familiar kiss; it’s an easy kiss. It’s a beautiful kiss. It tastes like the curve of Crowley’s lips and the mischief in his laugh, and the words _I love you I love you I love you_ _,_ spoken so often now that they were stained into the tongue, the teeth, all the way down the throat, stained into the hearts beating in both their chests. “I did. And you did.”

“Stuck with me now.”

“Good.” There’s another kiss, then. A longer one. The late afternoon light waits patiently for them to finish before fading into the orange and violet dusk.

“You know,” Crowley says, much later. “It’s our anniversary. I ought to take you out tonight, celebrate. What do you think? The Ritz? That little place in the—the castle, with the wellington thing you like? We could pop down to Paris, if you fancy it.” He grins, full of memory and comfort, the sort of hope that’s well-earned and worn-smooth with familiarity.

“Mm. Tempting.”

“Anywhere you want to go, angel.”

Aziraphale hears the call; he presses another kiss to Crowley’s mouth, slow and smiling, and gives the only response.

“I’m already here.”

*

“You do actually have to decide about dinner, though.”

“Oh, right. You know, I think we ought to just do a Chinese, have a night in on the sofa. And Crowley?” Another kiss, another smile. “Do wear the jacket.”

*

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @[forineffablereasons](http://www.forineffablereasons.tumblr.com)!


End file.
